This one will be available at the Longview Gallery in Washington, DC this week.- Opening August 5th. There are over 5,000 screws in this piece, madness… it seemed like a good idea… for a while.   Anyway, it looks better in person, some see for yourself if you can.

A few years ago, I made a sketch with an airplane with stickpins though it’s wings. It was amusing. It has developed into several pieces. A beautiful and common symbol of transformation, and an original inspiration for human is contrasted with mostly modern aircraft, carefully pinned up like a boy scout’s insect collection. I like the absurdly hopeful passivism of the concept, and the results of the painting itself.

Title: Inspiratus Collectus #3- Flight or Flight

Medium: Reverse painted clear acrylic with dimensional collage and stick pins.

Year: 2009

Size: 64″x64″

Awards:

• Award of Excellence 2010 Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival
• Best of Show 2009 Disney Festival of the Masters
• First Place Painting 2009 Space Coast Art Festival
• First Place Mixed Media 2009 Winter Springs Art Festival

“Curtailing Progress by Circular Reasoning” is another piece in long line of long titled pieces.  “I will stop repeating myself…” is repeated over a graveyard image, kind of a “goes around/comes around” spin based partly on the “cur tail” wordplay.  Cur is an almost archaic word- perhaps irrelevant… something you might say before a pistol duel, “You sir, are a mangy cur! I demand satisfaction!” SLAP!  … I digress.  Of course, I personally repeat myself repeatedly, but hope and (usually) strive for something better.

Title: Curtailing Progress by Circular Reasoning

Size: 48” x 48”

Medium: Reverse painted clear acrylic with collage and objects in a shadow box

Year: 2008

“Excerpts from Sonnets…” is a basically an ironic visual presentation.  Here the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (in Braille) are preserved under glass. The original meaning is lost since the people that can read it cannot touch it, and the people that can see it cannot read it.  Handprints and fingerprints in the margins indicate an attempt to grasp for answers that are almost close enough to understand.

Title: “Excerpts from Sonnets from the Portuguese #2”

Medium:  Reverse painted clear acrylic, transfer, acrylic and oil paint, and collage with poems in Braille.

Size: 36”x36”

Year: 2009

Master and slave morality, domination, strength, power imbalance and other general “Bully” phenomenon are explored using one of my favorite shapes from this series. From schoolyard shenanigans and cruelty to military invasions, “Bullying” is a pervasive animal/human characteristic worthy of some attention and dialog.

Note: Despite their tendency to slobber, snore and snort- real English Bulldogs tend to be very sweet and good with children .  This work is in no way intended to besmirch the reputation of any bulldog, living or dead.

Title: (Down) Bully
Size: 48” x 48”
Medium: Reverse painted clear acrylic with objects and painted collage in a shadow box.
Year: 2009

With a background in advertising and printing, I’ve always had an interest in logos and copy- mostly fueled by a need for a paycheck, and an ever-increasing distain.  With respect for groups like Adbusters out of Vancouver, and guys like Ron English in Washington, DC, this is one several fake logos that I’ve done.  The “Empyre” logo floats like the Hindenburg across an advertisement sky: almighty, untouchable, and ready to burn.

Title: Empyre Logo

Medium: Mixed media with collage, paint and objects

Year: 2009

Size: 32″ x 32″

This is an early piece from the Command Series, dealing with common attributes of dogs and men.  Positive canine qualities like absolute loyalty and trust are less appealing in people as greed for treats trumps all other possibilities.  This piece has two layers of painted acrylic, with a transfer of stock market quotes in the background. An obvious reference to a preposterous system of ravenous greed, organized in neat little columns of harmless looking numbers.

The image was used as the T Shirt art for the 2009 Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in Tampa.

Title: Fetch

Medium: 2 sheets of painted acrylic, with collage in a shadow box.

Year: 2007

Size: 48″ x 48“

Misquoting René Descartes and using a silhouette of Rodin’s “The Thinker”, this piece reflects on advancing technology and retreating humanity.  The artwork is a hard graphic of a familiar image combines with a painterly background and dozens of rounds of live ammunition.

Title: Cogito Ergo Armo

Medium: 2 sheets of clear acrylic painted both sides, with collage, objects and live ammunition in a shadow box.

Year: 2008

Size: 64″ x 64”

This one is based on a crude shape that I’ve used a few different ways. This particular piece has a raw energy that works for me.

Title: “Cur Age”

Medium: Reverse painted clear acrylic with collage, paint and objects in a shadow box.

Year: 2008

Size: 48″ x 48″

Awards:

• Best of Show, 2009 Boardwalk Art Show, Virginia Beach
• 1st Place Decatur Arts Festival, GA

Religious and canine expressions meld together through synonyms, misspellings and visual layering.  In a no mans land between humor and cruelty, this is a cutesy pop expression of my own dog-like bewilderment regarding misguided human potential.

Title: “Bow Prey”

Medium: Reverse painted clear acrylic with collage and objects in a shadow box.

Year: 2008

Size: 32″ x 32″